Paul R. Dubinsky

Education

Biography

Among the themes explored in Professor Dubinsky's recent work is the extent to which domestic legal systems increasingly are under strain as they are pressed to adjudicate a range of international disputes for which they lack experience or the ideal design. His article, "Is Transnational Litigation a Distinct Field: The Persistence of Exceptionalism in American Procedural Law" (Stanford Journal of International Law), shows that American courts turn, often reflexively, to interstate frameworks as they attempt to adjudicate growing numbers of disputes that are transnational rather than interstate in scope. "Human Rights Law Meets Private Law Harmonization: The Coming Conflict" (Yale Journal of International Law) focuses on the extent to which human rights advocates seek to transform civil litigation systems around the world so as to make the law of civil jurisdiction and choice of law more responsive to the claims of victims of human rights atrocities. "Justice for the Collective: The Limits of the Human Rights Class Action" (Michigan Law Review) argues that existing American class action law is poorly suited to delivering the kind of collective remedies increasingly sought by human rights victims.

Before coming to Wayne in 2005, Professor Dubinsky was an associate professor at New York Law School and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. From 1996-97, he served as associate director of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and associate director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights. As an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Professor Dubinsky served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Hague Conference on Private International Law during negotiations that culminated in the Hague Choice-of-Court Convention. Before beginning his career in teaching and scholarship, he was an associate at Wilmer Cutler & Pickering and a law clerk to the Hon. Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale College (summa cum laude), Harvard Law School (magna cum laude), and the Universiteit Katholieke of Leuven, Belgium (magna cum laude).

Professor Dubinsky serves on the Executive Committee of the American branch of the International Law Association, the Executive Editorial Board of the American Journal of Comparative Law, and the U.S. Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Private International Law. He was also a reporter for the 2010 International Congress of Comparative Law.

Selected Publications

Is Transnational Litigation a Distinct Field? The Persistence of American Exceptionalism in Procedural Law, 44 STANFORD JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 1 (2008)

Federal Common Law and the Finality of Judgments: A Response to Lenaerts and Gutman 55 AM. J. COMP.L. (forthcoming 2008)

Is Transnational Litigation a Distinct Field? The Persistence of American Exceptionalism in Procedural Law (under submission)

The Debate About Our International Constitution: Lessons from the Full Faith and Credit Clause (work in progress)

The Future of Transnational Litigation in U.S. Courts: Distinct Field or Footnote? Proceedings AMERICAN SOC. LAW (forthcoming 2007)

Challenging the Assumption of Equality: The Due Process Rights of Foreign Litigants in U.S. Courts, 5 SANTA CLARA J. INT'L L. 410 (2007)

Accomplishments

Paul R. Dubinsky co-taught a class on international dispute resolution at Windsor University Law School in Ontario.

October 29, 2016

Paul R. Dubinsky was elected to a third term as vice president of the American Branch of the International Law Association.

September 21, 2016

Paul R. Dubinsky presented "Federalism and Private International Law Treaties: Where Does the U.S. Go From Here?" at the Windsor University Law School faculty seminar.

May 11, 2016

Paul R. Dubinsky met with President Koen Lenaerts of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

May 9, 2016

Paul R. Dubinsky delivered "Private Law Treaties and Federalism: Can the United States Lead?" as part of the scholar-in-residence program at the London office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

May 6, 2016

Paul R. Dubinsky was a U.S. delegate to a meeting of the Executive Council of the International Law Association at the House of Lords in London. He attended in his capacity as Vice-President of the U.S. branch of the ILA.

March 23, 2016

Paul R. Dubinsky presented at a faculty workshop at Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem where he is a visiting scholar.

April 4, 2014

Paul R. Dubinsky and Professors Gregory Fox and Brad Roth prepared and presented "Treaties as Law of the Land? Change and Uncertainty in the Domestic Effects of International Agreements" during the April 4 Academic Symposium that was part of the two-day inauguration celebration for Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson.

December 12, 2013

Paul R. Dubinsky presented a well-attended lecture on "The Impact of Terrorism on the U.S. Legal System" at Shandong University in Jinan, China. His presentation was part of a 10-day trip to China to promote Wayne Law's new master's degree in U.S. law to several universities there.

September 21, 2013

Paul R. Dubinsky spoke at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis on Sept. 20 on the subject of regional and international human rights courts and whether the technocratic nature of much of their current work dilutes their influence in terms of moral force. And on Sept. 21, Dubinsky served as moderator and commentator during a two-day conference, "Justice Beyond the State," held at the University of Windsor Law School, Ontario, Canada. The conference explored developments in private international law and theories of legal pluralism as applied to transnational regulatory problems.

February 28, 2012

Paul R. Dubinsky made a presentation to the Wayne Federalist Society on "National Security Legal Issues in the Struggle Against Terror" on Feb. 17.

February 17, 2012

Paul R. Dubinsky spoke at "Our Courts and the World," a conference organized by Southwestern Law School, the American Society of International Law and the state bar of California held earlier this month. He addressed the role of comity and judicial discretion in civil litigation that implicates the legal systems of two or more countries.

December 21, 2011

Paul R. Dubinsky contributed a chapter to Oxford University Press's recently published book International Law and Domestic Legal Systems: Incorporation, Transformation, and Persuasion, edited by Dinah Shelton.

December 21, 2011

Paul R. Dubinsky was one of 10 invited scholars from across the U.S., Canada and France to present works in progress at the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute's Faculty Colloquium on International Law and Theory at Washington University St. Louis School of Law in November 2011. Professor Dubinsky's paper, entitled "The Place of International Law in the U.S. Legal System: The Fragile Status of the Traditional Understanding in the Winter of our Discontent," is part of his ongoing research into relative changes in the way that the U.S. legal system receives treaties, customary international law, and other forms of international law.